


the edge of the world

by utsu



Series: Between the Trees [8]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Character Death, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Flashbacks, Post-Apocalypse, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-12-20 18:23:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11926623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/utsu/pseuds/utsu
Summary: Regardless of what the future held for them, Sasuke was ready for it, because it meant that they had more time. That, he’d found, was another thing that truly mattered even after the world ended.The ability to let yourself love, and giving yourself time to do it well.





	the edge of the world

**Author's Note:**

> SasuHina Day 27: [Post-Apocalyptic](http://utsus.tumblr.com/post/164691493424/sasuhina-day-27-post-apocalyptic-ao3-in-the).

In the beginning, they made it sound like the end.

Banners spread across the bottoms of screens. Shops were broken into, weapons fired. Children cried; there wasn’t a window open or closed that could block out the high pitch of their screams. The pitter-patter of running feet, chaotic without certain direction. People crowding the streets, packing everything they could carry, everyone leaving. _Evacuate_ , they said.

 _The world is ending_.

From a very young age— _too young, too young_ —Uchiha Sasuke had learned to know better than that; the world didn’t end just because everything was taken from you.

The world moved on.

And it was up to you to figure out how to survive. 

 

✧

 

They called it the apocalypse. The world, overcome with chaos and disaster.

For months, and months. It seemed at one point that it would never end—the disease, and the way that it spread. Initially it had been airborne, but when medics made what they thought to be a cure, it only mutated. It entered through body fluids, cuts and spit. A papercut could do you over. It was vicious, ever-seeking. It changed people into something different. Brought out the shadows in their minds, made monsters of their madness, until all that was left of them was their hunger.

Sasuke understood hunger.

It had been years already since the moment he slid his older brother off the end of his blade, watched the life pool around him in every shade of crimson that he remembered from the first time his world ended. It was so like his brother to remind him of everything he had (taken from Sasuke) ever lost, even as his last breath left him. Sasuke’s last kin. Even in death his brother took from him; but then, one last gift. Memories before the chaos.

_Chasing fireflies in the backyard; watching his mother push hair from his father’s face; the smell of home-cooking on the tail end of the breeze; his aunt welcoming him home as he walked through the gates; ever-present laughter around the kitchen table; his cousin’s arm around his shoulders; a long tail of black hair always out of reach._

_His brother turning to him with a smile, every one of them a reward for how rare they’d become._

Sorry Sasuke _; a voice he can’t forget._ Maybe next time.

The first time the world ended for Sasuke, it rained down in shades of crimson. This time, it was less saturated, less of a downpour. Like the blood had dried, and now it flaked.

The end of the world, in sepia.

Sasuke already knew the taste of loss. This end only skimmed him.

 

✧

 

The systems of power were no longer in place. They crumbled under the unleashed monstrosity that was the Virus, and how it struck out without prejudice. The mighty became infected just as easily as the poor; one might even say the desolate knew better how to deal with the change. They survived better because they’d lived it.

The system of shinobi disbanded as well, with no tangible structure being held. Everything they tried to build crumbled. Everything they touched, fell. There would be a time for rebuilding systems, a time for humans to regain power, but it wasn’t now. Shinobi dispersed over the lands, seeking their loved ones, their partners, their friends.

Many lost what they had once had. The infection spread over the land like the breeze, unseen and intangible until it was too late. It was a cancer on the land, leaving behind scars in the earth in every humanoid shape it overcame. Those that survived had already lost so much, and because of that, many decided to travel in groups, create their own families, form their own bonds. They holed up in safe spaces that never stayed safe, and they traveled together when needed. They protected each other. They tried to start over.

Sasuke had always preferred to be alone. He was more efficient that way; he could pack and travel and sleep and hunt whenever he needed to, and however he needed to. There was no one to slow him down, no one to pry.

All of that changed when he found them. It was a gradual thing, a change as slow as time. There was a family. He started to visit them, sharing resources, sharing knowledge. He didn’t know exactly why he was drawn to them, only that they that didn’t hamper him but instead seemed to make him stronger. He’d never admit to checking up on them, but they had always known it to be so. At first, he had remembered them in shades; yellow, pink, gray, and brown. But then he traveled with them for some time, long enough to learn their names, long enough to care. It was a mistake.

For years, he hadn’t allowed himself to join any group lest the chance to love someone again arise, because he knew he’d lose them. Every person he had ever loved had been taken from him, right down to his reviled brother.

But this group was different. They were special. He learned their names and he cared for them. Naruto, with his unconquerable strength of spirit, his unending hope for a better future. Sakura, with her realistic optimism and her strong-minded will. Kakashi, lazy as he could seem, was lethally protective and loyal, his mind sharp as a knife. Iruka, who played father of the entire group and was beloved by all.

And Sasuke. Somewhere in-between their perfect cut-out pieces, he belonged.

And yet, even still, he felt himself holding back. His heart could not love again the way it had when he was a child—fearlessly and without hesitation. He cared for them, maybe even loved them, but he was still alone. He stood out from the group, took watch in the shadows of the trees. He guarded them and helped them and spent time with them, but he shared nothing of himself with them. They asked, sometimes, but they didn’t pester. He didn’t have anything he was willing to give.

It came to a point when they almost lost Iruka.

The creatures came to them on Sasuke’s shift. His fault. He’d been in his usual spot up in the trees, lurking in the shadows, watchful of movement in the night. Usually one could hear the creatures before seeing them—they breathed open-mouthed and heavily, often gurgling around the acid in their pipes.

The moon was full. Everything was quiet; as quiet as the forest could get. Around the whispering of the trees and the quiet muttering of insects, there was a peace to the night. One that was interrupted.

It caught Sasuke’s attention immediately, the sharp scraping of it. It was rhythmic, even, patterned. Sasuke touched the handle of his katana over his shoulder, a comforting reminder that it was there, and he chased the sound through the trees. He moved so quickly he blurred, stopping at the edge of the tree line. He looked out at the brief lowland before him, eyes scanning his surroundings.

He found a young woman there, digging ineffectually in the dirt with a weapon of old: a bō. Except for her digging, she was silent. Not a Creature, but human.

 _That didn’t mean she couldn’t be a monster_ , Sasuke thought idly, crouching low, watching.

She was crying. He caught sight of the tear on her cheek, watched it catch the moonlight and fall to the earth at her feet. She’d dug up more than he expected, and though her knuckles were white against her bō, her shoulders were shaking. Sasuke studied her expression from the trees for a moment longer, the broken fragility of her expression, the silent way she cried. His eyes flickered to the churned-up earth at her feet, where she continued to dig with a rhythmic repetition of movement.

She was digging a grave.

His eyes sought the body, found it at the dandelion-speckled tree line covered in a multitude of materials that looked to be her size. He frowned, wondering at her reasoning. It was nothing new to see that someone had lost. Sasuke’s heart remained unchanged with the reality before him. But what was the purpose of wasting her own clothing just to cover the body? Could they not find a blanket, a sleeping bag, a sheet? The person in those clothes was dead. The young woman still lived, and she would need the protection of layers.

Instead, she stood in a t-shirt and jeans, sneakers dirty and ripped. She lifted a hand to her face, wiped away tears. Dirt spread across her cheek. She laid her bō down carefully beside the grave, and Sasuke watched the contradictions in her; the way her shoulders shook with withheld sobs, and the way her body moved with a delicate kind of grace. He knew by looking at her, as an experienced fighter himself, that she could be lethal. In a life they’d all been forced to leave behind, she might have been a shinobi.

She knelt at the body’s side, ran her left hand over the cloth, her right over her own eyes. He heard for the first time the way she struggled to breathe; this was a loss she took close to heart. Sasuke found himself watching her curiously, shifting to kneel in the branches, uncaring that he was invading on a private moment. The world was too broken for him to care about things like that anymore—or maybe it was him that was too broken. Either way, he watched.

He should’ve headed back to his group. Had he returned, they wouldn’t have been left open for an ambush. Iruka would’ve never been attacked and Kakashi would’ve been saved the reality of nearly having to watch his love die before his eyes. But Sasuke was distracted and overconfident; his group was close enough that he was certain he could still protect them at a moment’s notice, his speed unmatched. He didn’t like to take chances when the outcome wasn’t certain, especially with _them_ , but there was something about _her_.

She trembled over her loss, and Sasuke was held motionless in the shadow of her grief.

The woman’s hair fell over her back in long sable waves, dark enough that it caught the moonlight and swallowed it whole. Her figure was striking, her face hidden in shadow. She lifted the body with surprising ease, cradling it close to her. For a flicker of a moment, Sasuke felt his curiosity dip into something primal—something unpleasant.

Who had this person been to her, that she would hold them so close to her? A family member? A friend?

Sasuke shifted. A lover?

The process of putting the body into the grave involved the woman herself stepping into it. For some ridiculous reason Sasuke could not understand, he found the sight of it off-putting. His frown was creating creased lines over his expression, his heart suddenly more present in his hearing.

And then the body was in the earth and the young woman was not; an angel of death returning to what was left of life on earth. She pushed the dirt back in and over her loved one with her bare hands, and Sasuke watched her all the while. There was something like resentment building in him, which he didn’t understand—and because he didn’t understand the reason, he began to grow frustrated.

What was so interesting about this woman? Why had he stayed to watch, encroached on her privacy, decided that she was somehow important enough to pull him away from a group of people that had—against all odds—fostered his affection?

Because that’s what this meant, right? That she was important. He would not have stayed here and left his group unprotected if even for a moment, unless she was important.

In another life, his resentment might have boiled over. He might have turned and run back to his group and resented that woman for making him feel something new and unexplained after so long having felt nothing. But if his group had taught him anything in this new world, it was this: caring for someone didn’t make you weaker. It made you _stronger_.

Sasuke’s feet touched the earth without making a sound. He purposely scuffed his shoe over a stone, overturned it, and caught her attention. Her body moved before she even spotted him. She dipped low, grasped her bō and turned to him in one fluid motion. She stood defensively, a shinobi’s positioning, and Sasuke appraised her duly.

“Hello,” he said, and felt like a fool. What was someone supposed to say to someone they’d just watched bury a loved one? “I mean you no harm.”

The words were a modernized echo of a story he had read as a child, and never revisited. He thought again of angels.

_(somewhere in the forest, out of earshot, a cacophony of screams)_

“I’ll be the judge of that,” she spoke, at last, and her voice was a surprise, too. Sasuke could feel his pulse in his fingertips, his throat. He stopped approaching her, not wanting to scare her any more than he already had by leaping out of the forest to ambush her. There were still tears running down her face, but she didn’t appear concerned about them. She held the bō carefully in her hands, comfortably, and Sasuke wondered just how good she was with that weapon.

“What do you want?” She asked, and a moment later, “I don’t have anything left to give up to you.”

 _To give up to you_. Would she have so willingly given him her possessions? She stood there like a fighter, prepared for any kind of attack, her stance flawless—but she was purposely not welcoming a fight. He watched the way her eyes trailed over him unblinkingly, steady and cautious. Perhaps she saw the stillness in him and read it for what it was: dangerous. Lethal. Someone that should not be approached.

Sasuke frowned.

“I heard you digging,” he said instead, glancing to the grave. Here, he had to be careful. He would not put his group at risk of danger or deceit lest this woman have a group of her own, with far less friendly intentions. He looked back to her and met her lilac gaze, bewildering in its coloring. “I was curious.”

“Clearly you know what I have had to do here,” she said, and there it was: the first sob. It broke valiantly through her defenses, surprising even her. Sasuke watched her absorb the shown weakness, watched the way her eyes immediately dropped to his feet, anticipating his attack. It was not forthcoming, however.

“Yes,” he admitted. Her eyes leapt back to his, narrowed.

“You shouldn’t have watched.”

If Sasuke had had a shred of self-preservation, he would have withheld his smile. Instead, he allowed it to show, brief but genuine. She was _scolding_ him.

“Yes,” he admitted, an echo of his prior statement. Her eyes never left his expression, and he felt deliberately _studied_.

“What is it you want?” She asked again, and Sasuke tilted his head.

“Are you alone?”

_(“No one was with him? Where is Sasuke? Why wasn’t he watching? Iruka! Find him! Iruka?” “We’re looking,” “We’ll find them, believe it, we’ll find him—”)_

It was the wrong thing to ask, when he was looking to calm her. Her shoulders tightened, her posture sharpening. Though she held a defensive stance, prey under his predatory gaze, he sensed that any wrong move of his and _he_ could be the one getting bitten.

He changed his question before she could respond. “What is your name?”

He watched her mull over that question, searching for a trap. When she seemed to allow herself to trust it, she said, “Hinata.”

He nearly smiled. “I’m Sasuke.”

Her expression amused him; he could almost hear her saying, _and?_ Sasuke felt his chest expand around a sigh, frustration at his own incompetence in this regard slowly growing.

“I don’t know how the idiot does this,” Sasuke muttered to himself, and glanced up to see her studying him curiously.

“Does what?” She asked, and Sasuke blinked.

“Makes friends.”

Her eyebrows jumped, surprise unfurling over her expression.

“You want to be my friend?” There was distrust there, immediately. Sasuke had expected that. The corner of his lips quirked, his expression splitting hairs over her sentiment.

“Not really,” he said honestly, watched surprise rekindle once more over her elegant features. “I don’t really have friends.”

_(“Oh God, the blood, is it his?” “No time, lift him. Put pressure on the wound and carry him. We need to run.” “Iruka, sugar, hold on. Where’s that fire I love so much? Huh? Let me hear it. Say something.”_

_“Say anything.”)_

“Sasuke-san,” Hinata said cautiously, “If this is your pitch, I have to be honest and say it’s not very good.”

This time Sasuke allowed himself to laugh, a single huff of hair that slipped through his lips. He nodded, understanding even as his expression steeled back into weathered indifference.

“I know.” He hesitated for a moment, wondering how much was safe to tell her. She might have a group, more people, and she might be dangerous. “I’ve never done this part before.”

Hinata caught on quickly. “What part do you usually do?”

Sasuke didn’t need to straighten, or stand any taller. He didn’t need to make himself appear any more intimidating than he already was, with the electric current running through him, and the death she could see already in his eyes, the way his fingers twitched every now and again, itching for the handle of the katana between his shoulders.

“The protecting part.”

 _(“Set him down here. Kakashi-sensei I need you to step back now—” “I have to stay with him.” “—I have to assess him. Go help Naruto—” “Is the blood his? Where the hell was Sasuke—” “Sensei! Go help_ Naruto. _”)_

Hinata watched him for a long time, scrutinizing, and Sasuke allowed it. He knew he wasn’t a very promising picture. There was a festering laceration on his left wrist from a group of raiders a few days prior, leaking into its bandage, and dried blood on his collarbone from a run-in with Creatures hours earlier. He was covered in dirt and sweat and grime. They were all living in a wild world that wasn’t kind. He still had blood under his nails.

After a long while, Hinata shifted. She stepped out of her stance with a delicate kind of precision, a woman wading into a pool. Her eyes, the most beautiful and interesting part of her, never left him. They were the only part of her that still looked guarded.

“I do the healing part,” she offered him at last, eyes dropping for one moment to the angry redness of his wrist. Her eyes rose back to his and her chin lifted, challenging. She had given something up to him willingly and she was hoping he wouldn’t use it to harm her. She was _trusting_ him. He couldn’t believe it. “I can look at that wrist, if you’d like.”

Sasuke didn’t want to shatter this newfound trust he’d somehow, amazingly, managed to foster between them. He shifted his weight and she followed the movement. His mind raced through the possibilities of what he could offer and what he shouldn’t, of how confident he was in himself and his abilities to open a gap into his world and hope that he wouldn’t have to kill her at the end of this.

So much was banking on _hope_ these days; at least, that’s what the idiot back home always said.

So here, in front of this stranger who had just buried her loved one, Sasuke decided to do the same.

“We have a medic, too. Another protector. A teacher. An idiot. You’d like him.” He didn’t take his eyes off of her, studying her expression for any changes or deceits. There was nothing but vague surprise, and he wondered if it was at the fact that he was not alone. Then, in that same shift of expression, sorrow.

He had not expected sorrow, of all things. Not in front of him. Her eyes chased the grave, jumped away a moment later. She could no longer look at him, but he saw the honesty of her smile when she glanced up a little, her bangs shifting.

“So many people,” she breathed, “That must be nice. I’m happy for you.”

There was nothing false in her tone, only sincerity. A tear beaded in her eye, fell over the gentle slope of her cheek. He had given her something important, and in return, she offered him the same. She gestured to the grave at her feet and Sasuke’s heart clutched, pounded, suddenly heavy in his chest.

“The Changed got him,” she whispered. “My cousin. My best friend.”

 _(“Shit. Shit, shit._ Fuck _.”)_

 _Cousin_ , Sasuke thought, holding onto that. A sudden relief slipped into him but he pushed it away a moment later; he could not examine the feeling when he was staring into the broken shadows of her gaze. She was as vulnerable as she could get there in front of him—until she wasn’t. She purposely stood taller, straightening her shoulders. There was iron in her, he thought, watching the way she wiped the tears from her cheeks.

“He was a good man. He deserved better than _this_.” She gestured to the grave with an open palm, lithe fingers. “But it is all that I have to give.”

The shirts, in her size, wrapped around the dead. Sasuke understood, now. He might not agree with it, but he understood.

When he spoke, his voice was quiet. He was not a sentimental man. But something in the way her expression fractured caught him by the jaw, pulled him in and wouldn’t let go. He felt drawn to her in a way he couldn’t understand; could only _feel_.

So he allowed her this rarity of his comfort and said: “This, too, is a way to heal.”

That made her look at him, really look at him, and he watched the tides of her perception of him churn and change. He looked beyond her to the grave, studying the rough cut of it, the intimate way it had been carved into the earth by someone struggling to breathe. It was careful though it was messy, restorative even as it hurt.

_(”Iruka-sensei? Stay with me. Open your eyes. Hi there, sensei, stay with me. Naruto is safe, please lay back. Do you remember what happened?”)_

He took a step closer, not hesitating even when she flinched. He knelt into the grass for only a moment, plucked a single dandelion from the earth. He approached her cautiously, ever-wary, and when she did nothing more than become rigid and watchful, he held the flower out into the space between them.

It was a short distance, only a few steps, a simple offering. A trust and a truce.

It took her several long moments of wariness and scrutiny before she stepped forward— _brave little thing_ —and took the dandelion from his grasp. She turned her back to him and it was _then_ that he knew.

She was choosing to trust him.

She laid the dandelion on the top of her cousin’s grave.

Sasuke stood beside her, the dandelion before them, hope caught between them.

And the future, too.

_(“Stay with me.”)_

 

✧

 

Luck, Sakura would tell him later. Pure luck and the backpack that Naruto had made Iruka as a child.

These were the reasons Iruka was still alive.

Sakura was the only one who would speak to him when he returned, after she’d stabilized Iruka’s condtion, ascertained his health—infection free—and brought Kakashi and Naruto back into their camp safely. Sasuke had left watch, and because of it, Iruka had nearly died.

When Kakashi came for him, he didn’t even flinch. The valleys of Kakashi’s knuckles were an expanse of felt sorrow against Sasuke’s cheekbone. They stained the pallor of him, left him muddled with bruising. It was the only physical blow he received, and he remembered thinking, _I deserve so much worse than this._

He revisited an old thought, a familiar thought, one he’d had over and over since he was a young boy. _Why hadn’t Itachi just taken him out, too?_

Naruto forgave him slower than he expected, but swifter than he thought he deserved. Sakura spent most of her time with Iruka, and Kakashi was never anywhere else but at Iruka’s side. Sasuke did not approach Iruka at all, though he knew he owed him so much more than the apology he felt already on his lips.

Hinata was his only companion, at that time. He wondered at what she thought of them; what he had dragged her into. What he had caused. He felt her at his side, not touching him, never touching, but somehow supportive. Understanding.

He couldn’t bear it.

When Iruka was well enough to walk, he came to Sasuke first. This hurt him more than Iruka would ever know. Sasuke could not meet his eyes, rare weakness on display. He felt so much smaller than he was. But Iruka’s kindness, evergreen and never failing, extended out to him, encompassed him. He pulled Sasuke into his arms and it was _Iruka_ who did the comforting, who hummed in Sasuke’s ear to soothe the way he shook.

The last time Sasuke had ever felt this small, his family had—

Iruka forgave him graciously, gently cuffing his ear but immediately straightening Sasuke’s hair there. “You made a mistake,” he explained quietly, lifting Sasuke’s chin. “It happens. We make mistakes, and we learn from them. But what’s important, Sasuke, is this: your mistake saved someone else. The young woman would have been alone if not for you. I know that must have been difficult for you. You’re no social butterfly.”

Sasuke looked into Iruka’s laughing eyes and felt, for the first time since he was a little boy, the sting of tears.  

“So thank you, Sasuke, for opening up to her. For welcoming her in.”

“Don’t thank me,” Sasuke sneered, pulling away from Iruka’s embrace. His eyes shuttered. Hatred turned a heated point inward, pressed against his heart. “Don’t.”

“I will thank you,” Iruka lifted his chin, now cowed under Sasuke’s rancor. “I do thank you. What you did was a beautiful thing, and you have much to learn from it. The good and the bad. Don’t let it defeat you.”

Iruka left him there with overwhelming confusion, self-hatred and relief all tying into one knot in his throat that left him speechless. He looked across the camp and watched Iruka return to Kakashi’s side at the fire, and the way Naruto came around immediately to settle on his other side. Sakura was in the tent they’d designated for healing and Hinata was there with her, too, trying to help where she could even though she wasn’t yet trusted.

Sasuke sat up in the trees and allowed a sharp piece of bark to dig into his spine. He thought of his own carelessness, Iruka’s graciousness, the surprise of Sasuke wanting to reach out to someone instead of withdrawing from them; everything spun in his mind until he ached with it. Pressure pushed against his temples.

 _A beautiful thing_ , Iruka had said. Sasuke turned to see Hinata walking out of the tent, healing salves in her arms. She brought them to Iruka and Sasuke watched him smile, so genuine and trusting, and beside him Naruto beamed.

She would fit, here. He could see that clearly. She was bright, like they were. She was trusting, kind, and genuine. She didn’t know them, couldn’t possibly trust them yet, but she was offering aid. She came to Iruka and offered to put healing salve on his wound, tucked under the backpack Naruto had made with his own hands, from strips of bamboo. Kakashi leaned against Iruka and carefully took the salve from Hinata’s hands with a subtle nod, and Hinata bowed before returning to the tent. She lifted the flap and hesitated, turning and catching Sasuke’s heavy gaze easily. She offered him a smile, shy and uncertain. Kind.

She belonged here.

But did he?

 

✧

 

A month passed and though Sasuke still questioned his sense of belonging in the group, it was clear that he had been forgiven. The only person who still rubbed salt in his wounds was Kakashi, who did so playfully but with an edge Sasuke couldn’t have missed. Naruto had gotten over his fear of losing Iruka that night and came to Sasuke with a slap on the back and a jibe comment that made Sasuke roll his eyes, but which lightened the burden on his heart. Sakura offered him tea in truce, and Hinata, ever present now in his life, remained at his side.

Once they got settled into the groove of things again and the bitterness between them resided, things began to change rather quickly.  

Hinata had once had a group of her own, but she and her cousin had been separated, chased and hunted by raiders all the way into new country. Something about her blood, her eyes. She didn’t explain it entirely, but she told him this: that she had a family out there in the world, too, and she was going to find them.

Without hesitation, Naruto promised that they’d help. Sasuke felt remarkably steadfast about keeping that promise.

Hinata integrated well into his group— _their_ group. With her cousin gone, she was alone. The more Sasuke learned of her, the more protective he grew of her. She was too trusting, too kind. She opened up easily to him, which surprised him and no one else. After a while he began to understand the smirks Naruto sent his way whenever he and Hinata went to find food, and it irritated him. He also didn’t miss Sakura’s amusement whenever he asked after Hinata, pretending he wasn’t worried every time she was away from camp. They’d even gotten Kakashi and Iruka in on it, too, and Sasuke had to put his foot down when Iruka told him, “It’s okay to let yourself love her, Sasuke.”

“I barely know her,” he’d spat, more caustic than he’d intended. It was frustrating, though, that everyone seemed to know how he felt before he did. He didn’t know what love felt like. How was he supposed to accept a feeling he couldn’t even confidently identify?

Iruka hadn’t minded. He’d simply smiled, that gentle, fond teacher’s smile that knew so much more than Sasuke would’ve ever wanted him to know.

He ignored his group’s jokes and focused instead on keeping himself fit and fed. He trained every day and he was the popular choice to run food runs, since he was the quickest in the group, next to Kakashi. Hinata became his partner more out of assimilation than necessity, since her role as healer was already filled by Sakura. Hinata hadn’t minded becoming her backup—so much so that Sasuke had thought that maybe she should’ve felt a little more pride in her abilities than to simply give up the position. But that was just the way she was—things that weren’t that important didn’t rile her. She was a stream no stone could stir.

She frustrated Sasuke, sometimes. He couldn’t understand where her passive kindness came from, or how it continued to thrive in a world of death and chaos. She was stronger than he’d expected, in more ways than the obvious; but none of her blows were lethal. She had a way of trapping her enemies, ensnaring them, making it impossible for them to move but never once ending their lives. She was more than capable, she was _impressive_.

But Sasuke couldn’t leave the Creatures to live. He couldn’t chance it. He sliced through them indifferently, efficiently, and he wondered at the sad way she sometimes looked at him across the madness, or behind the fire. It wasn’t pity—he would’ve put an end to that real quick—but something soft, and empathetic. He didn’t understand it, but it somehow only managed to draw him to her further.

It became common for him to gaze at her, almost idly. Sometimes he didn’t even realize he was staring until Naruto playfully nudged him or Sakura smacked him out of it and repeated her questions about his health checkup. Kakashi’s one visible eye was a constant show of amusement, and Iruka’s halfhearted attempts to rein in his own humor was almost worse.

Sasuke got pretty good at ignoring them, but that only left him with more focus on _her_. She was kind—to a fault. She sacrificed her own comfort and needs easily, and _that_ —

That was frustrating. It drove Sasuke nuts that she seemed so inclined to protect them before ever thinking to protect herself. She wasn’t careless about her safety, he’d even go so far as to say she was rather calculated, but even then she’d put others first. This behavior only fostered in him a stronger and hungrier sense of protectiveness; a need to keep her safe.

Somewhere in-between finding her at a grave site and welcoming her into their group she had become important to him. A different kind of importance than the one that had taken him to her in the first place—that had been cursory, borne mostly of curiosity and some unnamed interest.

Now, it was more. It was a stronger feeling, something deeper than loyalty.

Something like affection.

 

✧

 

Months passed, and Sasuke and Hinata went on another supply run. They had a pattern now, familiar and effortless. They had done these runs together long enough to anticipate each other’s moves and intentions. Time had shown that so long as they stuck together, everything would go according to plan.

By the time he and Hinata made it into the deserted town nearest to their camp, the sun was just barely rising into the sky. Everything was ruddy and dust-tinge, the air no exception. The space inside the buildings was the worst of all; stifling with clutter and dirt.  

“Do you need the list?” Hinata asked, and Sasuke simply shook his head. He led the way into a deserted department store and paused to listen, waiting for the nearly inevitable huffing of Creatures.

Silence.

Hinata’s steps were nearly as silent as his own, a few steps behind him. They moved into the store with practiced ease, grabbing the items they needed. Hinata had the list written in her back pocket in Iruka’s hurried scrawl, but neither of them needed to consult it. Their memories were good enough.

They made quick work of the department store and raced down the street to the dilapidated market. There was nothing left for them there except a two cans of expired beans and an ant infestation. Sasuke watched the trail of them move along the ground, blinking tiredly.

Hinata came to kneel beside him, resting one hand uncertainly on his shoulder. She was still wary of touching him, and he knew it wasn’t because she was afraid of him. She’d had plenty of chances by now to see him in lethal action, and never had she shirked away from the precise way that he destroyed. It was the closeness that stirred her, made her uncertain. He didn’t like it; he leaned ever so slightly into her touch and turned to watch her lips form the words.

“There must be food near here,” Hinata told him in hushed tones, glancing around him. He saw her cheeks flush and knew she was more than aware of him staring, though she said nothing of it. He lips quirked.

She hesitated a moment before offering, “A long, long time ago I had a friend who loved insects. Any kind of bug, and he’d love them.”

Sasuke’s eyebrows raised, and he hummed to show his interest. She glanced at him, finally, and held his gaze with a shy smile. She had never shared this with him before.

“His name was Shino.” She said fondly, the heaviness of her heart showing in the pooling of her eyes. “If there are ants here, I bet there’s something sweet nearby.”

Sasuke had the ridiculous thought that there couldn’t possibly be anything sweeter than Hinata around them, and smartly kept it to himself.

“If so,” Sasuke said instead, “It’s probably a waste.”

Hinata smiled at him, abruptly fond. “Doesn’t hurt to look?”

 _It could_ , he thought, studying the delicate sweep of her eyelashes and feeling the way his heart responded with a heavy, pointed thud.

“Okay.”

He let Hinata lead the way as they followed the short distance of ants. They found something surprising at the end of their trail, though as Sasuke had said, it was a waste.

“An apple,” Hinata mused, looking around them as if to find where it had come from. “I wonder who found it, and where they got it.”

Sasuke studied her curiously, one eyebrow pinched. What made her so curious about things like this? Her wonder was almost childlike at times, and he had long since accepted that he found that endearing about her. The broken world they lived in could not break the genuine wonder of her curiosity, try as it might.

Still, his abruptness was something he couldn’t change. “Doesn’t matter. This is a dead end.”

Hinata surprised him with a quiet laugh, even as she glanced over at him. There was something expectant and amused about her expression, as if she’d expected that response from him. He frowned at her, but there was no real heat to it.

After the apple, they made their way back through the market and left with several items on the list left unchecked. It had been a long shot anyways, looking for some of the items that Iruka requested. They’d have to get up and move soon, lest they run out of supplies entirely. Sasuke was thinking about potential directions to move when, in the back of his mind, he heard something stand out against the normalcy of the morning. Something like a shift in the wind, panting.

His hand shot out, his fingers circling around Hinata’s wrist. He led them into the tiny space between the market and the broken-down salon beside it, pulling Hinata in close to his chest. She went with him willingly, no stiffening in her body, completely trusting. If Sasuke hadn’t been so focused on the threat looming over them, he might have allowed himself to feel pleased by that.

The Creatures approached from the east, casting long shadows ahead of them. They hadn’t seen the two of them, but they’d certainly smelled them. Soon, they’d walk right past them. Sasuke had maneuvered them in a trapped space, hoping that it would kill their scent before the Creatures approached. But they’d been quicker than he expected, and instead he realized he should’ve taken them to the roofs, where their scents could’ve trailed down the street and misled their unwelcome guests.

He nudged his nose in Hinata’s hair, his lips pressing against the shell of her ear—his own private allowance.

“To the east,” he whispered, and felt Hinata shiver against him. It was not a cold morning. She was holding onto his biceps, clutching them with tension, and he felt her press six fingers in against him more tightly then the rest. He nodded against her, impressed as always with her scouting ability. _Six of them_.

Sasuke held himself completely and utterly still, with Hinata pressed as close to him as she could be. The hand he had on her nape pressed closer and he could feel her pulse racing in her throat. She was nervous. Anyone else, and he would’ve accepted that as normal. But Hinata was usually one of the calmest people to take out on missions—she had a natural coolness to her that absorbed tension and threat without trembling; a sharp contradiction to her usually uncertain nature.

The only other option, then, was that their position made her nervous. Sasuke wondered over that for only a moment, knew again that she did not fear him, and wondered if maybe she felt for him the same way he felt for her. He wasn’t the kind of person who got nervous, though.

He just became more and more interested.

But with six carnivorous Creatures suddenly breaking into view beside them, only ten feet away, he had no other interest currently than getting them out of there safely. Hinata had her bō strapped over her shoulders; she could handle herself in a fight. Sasuke had his kusanagi as well, but he didn’t want to take the chance. Any possibility that put Hinata in danger was one he didn’t favor, even if he was there to help protect her. Offhandedly, the fingers he had on her nape shifted, nudging at a new tear in her shirt. Probably something that happened when they were crawling through tiny spaces to get to the hidden stress of cans in the market. It left his mind a moment later.

He found himself playing with the H word again, hoping that they’d finally just have a spot of luck and the Creatures would miss their scent and pass them by. He pressed his nose further into Hinata’s hair, willing her to be even more still.

Relief flooded over him as the Creatures slowly passed them by, ravaging the garbage littering the streets only to grow bored when no meat was found and move on. The sun was rising steadily into the sky and Sasuke thought that finally, finally they’d managed a spot of luck.

And then the breeze blew an empty can into the lip of their alley, and the fifth Creature shifted in their direction. Sasuke watched from the corner of his eye as it lifted its nose to the breeze, caught their scent, and then caught sight of them all in one fluid movement. They were cornered. Sasuke cursed under his breath even as he grabbed Hinata’s thighs, holding her against him as he used every muscle in his legs to leap into the sky. The Creature’s screech tore open the peace of the town and from it spilled matching vicious snarls, its entire herd turning to chase.

Hinata allowed herself to be carried only long enough for ground to meet his feet. Then she pushed away from him and ran beside him as they heard the Creatures climbing the buildings, attracting distant herds in the forest around them. Sasuke worried for their group, hoped they knew to hide and be on guard as they heard the herd screech. Sasuke could smell them, now, the compost of meat between their teeth, burnt flesh and decay.

“Shit,” Sasuke cursed when he glanced over his shoulder and saw the first of the pack barreling towards them. It was faster than he’d expected. When he turned back to the streets below, looking for a safe place to land, Hinata was already shaking her head.

“There,” she said, pointing to the tree line at the base of the town. A second, far larger herd of Creatures was coming towards them at a run, drawn to the call for flesh. Hinata turned to him with wide eyes, and for the first time in a long time, there was real fear there. Sasuke unsheathed kusanagi in a single swift movement, pushing Hinata back a step behind his shoulder even as she brought her bō into her hands and held it out in front of her.

Hinata glanced up at him as he looked over his shoulder at her, the fourth Creature of the initial herd now barreling towards them. In a few seconds the first would be upon them. Behind Hinata they could hear claws ripping through wood and seams—the massive pack was ascending to better reach their scent.

“We fight then,” Hinata said quietly, turning around to face the massive horde. Sasuke’s heart leapt into his throat, caught somewhere between fear and admiration for her bravery. _She’s beautiful_ , he thought even as he fell into an offensive stance.

“We live,” he said, making it a command, hoping she’d follow it. In the same bizarre way that she seemed to trust him, with her life, with everything since he’d met her, he trusted her too. He turned his back completely and trusted that she was strong enough and competent enough to keep herself safe. He was not going to leave her to face an entire ascending horde of monsters by herself, but he had six monsters of his own to cut down before he could offer her assistance.

He made quick work of three of the Creatures with even slices, moving so fast they were still running for him even as they fell to pieces. The remaining three were smarter, flipped out of his way with some remnants of human intelligence. They fought back.

He was working on the last two when he remembered belatedly that Hinata preferred not to kill monsters even as they tried to kill her—that he’d let her face a horde she’d refuse to kill while he took down a mere _six_. He breathed her name as kusanagi sliced through the leftover jugular of one of the last two, and then plunged straight through the last Creature’s cranium to silence any leftovers of life.

He turned before kusanagi was even completely out of the Creature’s brain, and his eyes had to sift through countless raging bodies before he found her. She was in the center of maybe twenty of them and all he could see was the swirl of her hair as she spun, and the end of her bō moving through the air. Her back was facing him still and he could just barely hear the consistent _thwack_ of her making contact and the grunts she made when she put more muscle behind the moves. Soon, however, those noises were drowned out from under the screams of the bloodlusting horde around her. There were too many of them, had been too many from the start—there was blood on Hinata’s cheek, bodies at her feet. They didn’t move. Sasuke met her eyes and saw tears. She was killing them.

The muscles in Sasuke’s legs contracted, preparing to launch towards her.

One of the Creatures leapt from the fray, slamming into her, taking her over the ledge.

Hinata plunged three stories from the roof and Sasuke felt the shadow of the world’s third ending overcome him. Rage filled him with nothing but shade, obsidian that caught and smothered all forms of light. It rose before him, not a battle rage red but a murderous intent dripping black like an endless, viscous night.

His muscles released and he was tearing through the Creatures without even looking at them, his blade making easy work of their decaying joints, the softest parts of them torn open on the rooftop. He spun in an arc and held kusanagi steady as the first ten surrounding him fell headless and twitching, but he did not pause to admire the work. He leapt into the air, over the horde, and landed on the furthest ledge.

He looked down and saw her lying there in the dirt, fighting on her back. Sasuke’s eyes constricted, changed. Heat caught in his temples and he leapt from the building without looking back. Creatures rained down from the roof around him, leaping carelessly, just chasing meat. He bounded from building to building, volleying down safely in a way Hinata had not had the chance to. He landed beside her and kicked the Creature on top of her into the market wall before running it through from shoulder to hip, an easy diagonal slice.

“Hinata,” he called, trying to be heard over the rabid screeching. He turned and cut away a Creature that managed to get a hand in his shirt, pulled him close to its gaping, dripping maw.

He felt movement at his ankles and saw Hinata jut the end of her bō into the chest of a Creature that had come far, far too close to her throat. She was doused in blood and Sasuke felt panic for the first time in _years_.

Blood was never a good sign with Creatures. It almost always meant they’d gotten in somehow, through a bite or by spilling their blood onto an open wound. Did Hinata have an open wound? Sasuke, for the life of him, couldn’t recall clearly. He spun and felt his leg get pulled out from under him, but he righted himself with a single somersault. He dispatched that crafty Creature with added malice.

He spent so much time gazing at Hinata, curiously, with interest, and yet he couldn’t remember if she had an open wound. Anything, anything at all. The sickness—it could enter through anything open, anything broken. He had to think, to remember; was Hinata’s skin perfectly, safely intact? Sasuke couldn’t remember, he couldn’t remember, he spent so much time looking because she was beautiful and kind and so _sweetly_ endearing he could rarely look away—and he needed to know she was safe, he need to know it with _certainty_ because if she had an opening, if she was vulnerable, if she had been exposed and on _his_ watch—

He couldn’t lose another person he loved. He couldn’t.

So he had to _think_ , even as he moved, cut, killed. He created an arc around her, and then many more arcs around the monsters. He moved so fast oxygen was sucked out of the air around them, smothering everything he circled but leaving Hinata so carefully, purposefully untouched. She got to her feet and the waves of them just kept coming. Sasuke thought of her body in sections, going over them hoping to find clarity.

Sasuke was getting close to running on reserves, his adrenaline and his battle sense only taking him so far against an army of relentless and tireless monsters; he was an incredible warrior but he was also only a man.

Hinata understood this. She reached out but didn’t touch, and he was thankful for that, too. In this mood, in this pace, he was liable to cut into her if she moved into his rhythm. For that reason, he slowed, stopped, leapt to her as he sheathed kusanagi.

She lifted a hand to rub at her nape, and Sasuke remembered the new tear in her shirt.

All the breath in his lungs left him, even as he wrapped her up in his arms and leapt out above the horde. He raced across the rooftops, pulling from energy stores he didn’t even know he had just to get her out of there safely. He ran and ran until the snarling became a thrumming in the distance, until the trees blotted out the midday sun. When he finally exhausted himself, he settled her against the wide trunk of an oak tree and knelt at her side. She was breathing heavily, just like him, but he was banking on her reasoning being fear.

“Hinata,” he panted, knowing his eyes were wild, glazed with battle. “Hinata are you hurt? Tell me.”

He grasped her chin gently between his fingers and didn’t even hear her response, though he traced the way her lips formed the words. He turned her head and pulled down the neckline of her shirt where it had torn, searching nearly frantically for any sign of open skin. Hinata was muttering something against him, her hands coming up to rest on the sides of his throat, not threatening but comforting—just holding on. He couldn’t hear her for several long moments, his heart racing as he continued to search for the cut that had opened her shirt. He found nothing, and that soothed him enough that her words became clear, intelligible.

“Sasuke, Sasuke,” she murmured, pressing her cheek against his for a moment. “I’m okay, It’s not my blood. The nail—It didn’t break the surface. Are you injured?”

Sasuke was overcome with a depth of feeling he’d never experienced before; a wealth of relief that touched his very soul. Relief wasn’t a strong enough word for what he felt, knowing that she had somehow narrowly escaped the monster’s transformation and ultimately her premature death. Sasuke pulled back and studied her eyes, searched one last time for her truth—she was liable in an instance like this to lie to him, to comfort him. He didn’t think that she would, but in the past she had shown time and time again that she would do many surprising things just to comfort him.

When it was at last his turn to surprise her, it wasn’t even a decision to be made on his part. It was a necessity. He leaned in and found her lips with his own, uncaring that he was showing her how unashamedly desperate and needing he was. He brought his hands up to her cheeks and held her there, reveled in the instant reciprocation of his affections, the way her lips moved so willingly and carefully against his.

He traced every one of his worries against the edges of her teeth, his tongue whispering into her every fear she’d brought out in him. She responded in kind, hushing every one of his insecurities with the promise of her breath, proof that she lived. He pulled back to let her breathe, rested his forehead against hers.

“Your back,” he said, but she heard the question in it.

“I’m a little banged up,” she admitted, “But I have feeling in my legs. No numbness. Definite bruising, maybe some fractures.

Then, she smiled. “Everything hurts.”

Sasuke’s expression pinched and he could feel pain, too, in the way that she smiled around her own. Being alive meant they could still feel pain, he reminded himself. This was a good thing. She had fallen from the roof with a Creature’s momentum on top of her—it could’ve been so much worse.

He couldn’t think about that again so soon after having that fate almost realized. This, he thought, must’ve been how Kakashi had felt.

What was important now was that she was here, alive, not infected, in his arms. He tugged at her shirt, right over her shoulder, and nudged her forehead with his own.

“No other cuts?” He asked, needing to be sure. “There’s a lot of blood on you, Hinata.”

“No other cuts,” She promised. Then, with surprising courage, she said, “Later, you can check. To be certain. If you want. Only if you want.”

She faltered halfway through, second-guessing herself, even in the face of his outright desire. His devotion to her was paramount. He’d nearly gone mad to rage from the sorrow of even thinking he’d lost her, and yet she was still uncertain of the extent of his feelings for her. He moved closer deliberately, nuzzling against her temple even as she stiffened in surprise. He’d have to rid her of that habit; he wanted his touch to be familiar enough to her that it didn’t surprise her.

It was something to look forward to.

“I want to check,” he said quietly, unable to stop touching her, trailing his fingertips over her skin. Now that he had broken through whatever had been holding him back, his inability to recognize the feeling of love that he held for her, it was as though he could not bear to be separated from her. He knew, logically, that in this moment it was mostly the closeness of danger that they had only just barely escaped. That adrenaline was still coursing and this _need_ to be with her was a defense mechanism, something to protect her and himself from the reality of having almost lost her.

Even still, he would let himself have this.

“I will check,” he promised. And then, as an amused afterthought, “If I were less tired, I would have suggested something other than sleep tonight.”

The flush that came over her cheeks spread down to her throat, where Sasuke pressed a low laugh against her skin with his lips, tasting the heat of her surprised affection. She reached up and ran a hand through his hair, her fingers coming away with bits of dried blood that made her groan in disgust. He pulled back to see her pinched expression and could only smile, his expression softening with apparent affection.

“I’m not too tired for a shower,” He said pointedly, grinning as he looked her over. It surprised a laugh out of her, even as she lifted her hands to cover her face, embarrassed.

Maybe they’d be traumatized, and every time from there on out he’d be a little too protective on their missions. Maybe he’d get too close and stay that way, and maybe he’d reach out to her more than she might expect him to. Maybe she’d welcome it.

Regardless of what the future held for them, Sasuke was ready for it, because it meant that they had more time. That, he’d found, was another thing that truly mattered even after the world ended.

The ability to let yourself love, and giving yourself time to do it well.


End file.
